Blog
Today’s music and assessment input looked at Lessoning planning. This session has developed my confidence in lesson planning especially when planning music lessons. Having last planned lesson in February it was great to get a refresher on planning lessons and how to link experience and outcomes (Education Scotland 2009). In order to develop my lessoning planning, I will need to continue to practice and take on board any feedback given in order to improve. My group looked at how we would plan a music lesson
Our learning intention was:
- We are discovering to use Rhythm
- We are exploring how to use our body as an instrument
Success criteria
- I can use my body to make different sounds
- I can identify the Rhythm of Jingle Bells
Experience and outcome Exa 1-17a
We planned to use the body percussion in this video to teach the children how to play jingle bells https://youtu.be/E8uuvNLkh-M
Anybody Can Dance
I found this session really enjoyable and informative. When I was in primary school, I used to go to a dance club where I learned ballet, tap and jazz so I have some knowledge of dance but not a lot. Prior to starting this module, I thought that dance would be considered as part of Health and well being and not art but I can now see how closely it links with both.
A key concept that I learned today was that when teaching dance it should be child-led. Children creating their own dance movements allowing for children to discuss moves and how they feel about them. It also gives children a chance to explore rhythm and different types of music.
When dancing children’s safety is paramount. Getting it right for every child it is emphasised through the Shannari indicators that children need to be safe in order to learn and this is no different from dance. Dancing should take place in a safe environment such as a gym hall with any equipment having undergone a risk assessment.
Just like drama I have learned that dancing is meaningful and can be used as a cross-curricular activity to link with other areas. For example, if the children’s topic was World War 2 you could look at VE and have the children dance as if they were at a street party.
I have increased my knowledge on different types of warmups and how they get children ready. The example that was used getting children to line up in order of height was very interesting to me. I can now see that this improves children’s nonverbal communication as well as getting children more familiar with their bodies. I also liked the idea of Chinese dance whispers as a warm up as children would be engaged and would again further develop their communication skills. Prior to this input, I would have been lost if I was to teach dance but after Zara’s input about “The ten key moves”
I now feel more confident in where to start teaching dance. Using Brookfield, S. (1995) second lenses and thinking about the children I feel that they would enjoy this as it gives them the creative freedom to express themselves and that it is fun. When creating my dance with my group we spoke about how complex we would make the dance and how we could differentiate it for children with different abilities.
References
Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: Josette-Bass
Education Scotland (2009) Curriculum for excellence: Expressive Arts: Experience and Outcomes Available at: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf (Accessed 29 November 2020)
Singingsharon (2020) Jingle Bells Body Percussion. 19 November. Available at: https://youtu.be/E8uuvNLkh-M (Accessed 29 November 2020)
